"Fred" wrote in message
...
"Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover""
wrote
in message ...

Drainage problem isn't an adequate explanation. Some cameras are
just
battery hungry. Your best bet is to use Ni-MH rechargeables.

Thanks. In this case battery, drainage or contacts are all OK. A new
battery appears as if it were bad right away. First thing I checked
was
battery, contacts, easy things. My thought is it's an open or short
in the
power comparator circuit. Like a couple of folks said, a bad
capacitor or
diode maybe.

One thought about the latter. In some equipment, they put a rectifier
diode across the battery with the cathode to positive, so that if the
batteries are put in backwards, the diode will short them out and save
the equipment from being damged. Well you may have such a diode, and
the backwards batteries may hav damaged it so that it's drawing serious
current and draining the batteries.

Yesterday, one of the ladies at work came into the shop and asked me for
an AA cell, needed for the new wall clock she had just bought. I gave
her one, and what'd she do? Just shoved it into the holder on the back,
not even watching which way it was supposed to go in. And of course she
put it in backwards. Well, DUH, after she turned it around the right
way, it started working. Murphy's Law applies. :-P